Huntington determined himself to try the new region. He j)r(>bably felt that he needed a larger field for his enterprising spirit and his ability than was aftbrded by an interior | county in New York. He transferred his share in ' the home business to his brother, and sailed for San Francisco, by way of the Isthmus, in March, 1S4!I. : He had then been actively engaged in business, but ^ upon a small capital slowly saved, lor ten or twelve years. He was twenty-eight years of age, in perfect health, active, stronger than most men, with an iron frame and good New England habits ; and his first adventure on the way showed that the man had kept the sagacity and clear-headed enterprise of the boy. He was landed on the Isthmus in company with sev- ■ eral hundred other anxious gold-seekers; they all got across to the Pacific sis well as they could, hiring i ilonkeys for their baggage and marching on foot them- '

selves. But when they reached I'anama, no vessel appeared to take them north. They found a great crowd -- the passengers by a previous steamer -- waiting impatiently, and they were detained long enough to see several other steamer-loads arrive from New York and New Orleans. Thrown together in a small foreign town, a jiromiscuous company of adventurers, with no rciitraints of public opinion, and nothing to occupy their minds or hands, the unhappy people took to gambling and various kinds of dissipation ; and the cliniateand theirown imprudence caused much misery and sickness and a great many deaths. Mr. Huntington feeling the need of employment to while away the tedium of delay, and disinclined to dissipation, undertook the transport of baggage and cargo across the Isthmus. He began with one donkey, and was so successful that he was presently the owner of a train of animals, and while the less energetic gold-seekers were wasting their means and health, the long delay often or twelve weeks enabled him to earn a handsome sum of money, which gave him an important start on his arrival in San Francisco.